It's a curious, wanting thing.

And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.

I barely knew I had skin before I met you.

Being in love, you know... it's not like having a canary, in a cage. When you lose one sweetheart, you can't just go out and get another to replace her.

Even ashes are a part of your freedom.

I knew Id always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, Well, Id rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one.

I do love the past but wouldnt want to live in it.

Why do gentlemen's voices carry so clearly, when women's are so easily stifled?

Why is it we can never love the people we ought to?

I never expected my books to do even as well as they have. I still feel grateful for it, every single day.

With every step I took away from her, the movement at my heart and between my legs grew more defined: I felt like a ventriloquist, locking his protesting dolls in to a trunk.

If the choice is between two evils, it is still evil,

Without haters, you can't see the level of your progress, that shows you that haters are necessary evil.

I guess I forgot we were going out tonight.""We always go out on Fridays.""It's Thursday, Alvis.""You are so tied to routine.

The great do not always prevail.

One tiny flame could make so many other flames; one tiny flame could set afire a whole world.

My father is sure that Israel keeps the Holocaust from happening again. I worry that it might hasten its recurrence.

It is glorious to become a learner again at my time of life.

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.

The more you work with anyone, the more comfortable and safe you feel. The more you have an understanding.

The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader's heart.